Thursday, September 18, 2014

The other day Mom made oven pulled pork, but with leftover vindaloo sauce she'd bottled in the freezer, rather than a barbecue-type sauce.

Yum. Highly recommended. Familiar texture, all the delights of pulled pork (I love the edges that get a little crispy, but I also love all the tender meat too), with an unexpected pepperiness and complexity I'm still thinking about.

I don't have her vindaloo recipe, maybe this will prompt her to provide it.

It was served with a lemon pilaf that I also loved and which was BEAUTIFUL. It called for mango as a garnish but since we're swimming with peaches in late August/early September, we used peach. I would maybe serve the peach slices (unsweetened) on the side; I did love it as a companion to the pilaf, and again, it looked BEAUTIFUL, but I wanted my rice and peach bites more separated.

With peas on the side, the plate was really gorgeous, with the juicy meat, the bright yellow rice polka-dotted with blackened mustard seed, the orange-and-red peaches, green peas, and wedges of rye-barley flat bread.

Monday, September 1, 2014

Another yummy recipe modified from Penzeys. In the Penzeys catalog, it is done as bacon-wrapped chicken kabobs, but here Mom has simplified it into a skillet dish, or de-kabobed it. Brother I noted that dekabobed dishes are kaboodles. Well, ok, then.

The idea of wrapping a protein in bacon is fun, because the flavor of bacon is fun, but we like our bacon more done than that technique allows. The bacon flavor and a nice, remarkably full orange flavor come through well here.

In medium saucepan, combine sauce ingredients. Heat over medium until boiling. Boil the sauce, stirring frequently, until it is reduced by half its volume. Set aside and let cool. (Note that this makes a lot of sauce; the recipe may only need half of it)

Crisp the bacon in a large skillet; remove to drain. Leave some bacon fat in the skillet to brown the chicken pieces in batches; cook until almost, but not quite, cooked through. Remove to plate.

Brown the vegetables in the remaining bacon fat and fond; add back the chicken with some sauce and cook until done. Moisten with the sauce as appropriate and to taste; the sauce is quite powerful. Add bacon back right before serving to remain crisp. Serve on rice.